 2022, thank you for joining us for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 6, 6.13. There was a little bit of a problem to the agenda, although there was an amendment made to an agenda item, it is not showing up on board dock. So what I'm hoping that someone could do is to move the agenda with the following amendment that we would be adding to item 7.04, an amendment posted at 2.44 p.m. per CAO Shad from Councillor Jang. If somebody could move that. So moved. Thank you. If there's a second. Seconded by Councillor Travers. Thank you very much. Is there any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the agenda as amended please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have an agenda. The next item on our agenda is number two, a communication with an inspected executive session on union collective bargaining negotiations. Before we go into executive session, Attorney Chaint James, is there anything that you would want to or be able to give us in open session on this item? Just that we are generally in the early stages still, I think we want to give an update to council, get direction from council so we can keep moving forward towards, you know, hopefully swift resolution of the agreements. Okay. Are there any questions from counselors based on that information? And if not, I would entertain a motion to go into executive session. The two motions are listed on board docs. If somebody could make that motion, the first motion please. Who has their computer up? Councillor Hanson. I move that the council find that the premature general public knowledge of information concerning the city's position and legal advice concerning such a position in regard to labor relations agreements with employees would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage when entering such negotiations. Thanks, Councillor Hanson. Is there a second to that motion? Second. Seconded by Councillor Travers. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Councillor Jang. Seeing then, if you could make that second motion based on the finding. Based on that finding, I move that the council go and do executive just executive session to receive confidential attorney client communications per one VSA 313A1F interlabor relation agreement with employees matter. One VSA 313A1B. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Seconded by Councillor Travers. Any discussion on the second motion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. We see your thumbs up. Thank you. So we are in executive session for the benefit of the public who may be watching. It is expected that this executive session will be no longer than one hour, perhaps a little bit shorter, and we are hoping to reconvene in Contoy's at 7 p.m. We will be downstairs, so there's there isn't anyone in Contoy's, but if there is, well there is actually. I can stay here and we will hopefully hope to be back in about 45 minutes or so. Councillors, you've received a welcome attorney, Stephen L. Departure, as I said, of the city attorney. It was the decision of the city's city attorney's office to hire Attorney Ellis to serve as our parliamentarian for the next few months. And for those who haven't taken a look, in case you haven't, Attorney Ellis has an extensive background in municipal law working with select boards and other government entities. So thank you so much, Attorney Ellis, for being here. Number three, which is a presentation regarding the Main Street Project. I believe we have a team from DPW, not only in person with director, Chip and Spencer, but also a number of people that are with us joining us online. And we're going to try, if we can, to keep the presentation aspect of this to about 20 minutes, and then we probably will have to take a break with public forum and then come back to this. So good evening. And if you can introduce the people that are joining us, that would be great. Thank you, President Paul. And thank you to the council for the opportunity to present the updated conceptual plans for the Main Street, Great Streets Project. With me remotely are two DPW staff members. We have senior engineer Laura Wheelock and Public Works engineer Olivia Durese, who are capably managing this ambitious program. And there's a large consulting team which we'll introduce soon. The key message here really in my mind is that this is a time limited generational opportunity to rehabilitate and re-invert vision Burlington's aging Main Street, the primary gateway into the city between I-89, two colleges, two public schools downtown and are soon to be reactivated train station. The Great Streets Initiative builds on over 10 years of community planning, much of which we have discussed here before. And as long as we keep the momentum going, we will be able to meet the deadlines to have the downtown Tiff district fund the 30 million dollar comprehensive renewal of Main Street without impacting local property taxes. So tonight is another public engagement opportunity after 35 other public meetings and listening sessions. We've had an online survey, lawn signs and many one-on-one meetings. Tonight is a next opportunity. I want to have our team show the presentation here and recognize the many city departments who have been involved in this effort to date. This really has been a remarkable opportunity where I think most if not all departments have been engaged in this project one way or another. And here you'll see many of them called out from the racial equity inclusion, belonging, BCA, parks, tertiary marketplace, CEDO, public works. We've also had city attorney and CT office and many others. So we'll get to introducing the consultant here in a second. There's no decision that's being requested tonight. This is a presentation and a Q&A. We do plan to return to you all on the 23rd of May to seek your support for the general concept and the proposed changes to the line and grade of the road so that we can direct our consultant to finish up the conceptual design and move to preliminary and final plans. As you recall, this is on an ambitious timeline with construction that is projected to begin fall of 2023 or spring of 2024. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to VHB's lead team member, Evan Dietrich, who will introduce the consultant team and lead us through a short presentation. Evan. Thanks, Chapin. Good evening, everyone. I'm Evan Dietrich with VHB. I'm the overall project manager for the consultant team. We do have a bit of a formal presentation here. We'll try to keep it moving right along. This presentation, along with additional information, is available in your city council packets tonight. So you have this presentation plus more information that you can do between now and the 23rd as well. So three main consultants, VHB, agency landscape and planning, and then the grayscale collaborative. And with me tonight from agency is Susanna Ross and Steve Woods. And they're both going to speak in just a minute. But just to refresh your memory about the project, this is the Main Street project that extends from Battery Street up to South Union Street. So it's a total of six blocks. You can see the map there. It's six blocks right through the heart of the downtown. We're gonna talk about the timeline tonight. This is the schedule we have for the project. And you can see we are here now at city council tonight. This team got started in October of last year with some preliminaries such as the field survey and geotechnical investigations. And since that time, we've had two public meetings and two business owner meetings, as well as a bunch of outreach sessions to a number of different focus groups. So that has happened really between February and the present time. Looking forward, we're going to be back in front of the city council later this month for your concurrence on the concepts that we've developed. And then hopefully we'll be able to move right forward into the preliminary engineering, which will happen through the rest of this year and into early next year. And then next spring and summer, we'll be preparing the final plans and the contract documents and then get the project out the bid so that construction can begin in late 2023. And that'll probably last through at least the first part of 2025. And that may get extended out to depending on what other initiatives the city has going on at the time for things like the ravines who are possibly. So that's kind of a quick summary of the timeline. And we're going to talk about what we've been doing for the outreach that I mentioned over the last couple of months. And I'm going to turn it over to Susanna for that. Thank you, Evan. Hi, everyone. Happy to be here. As mentioned, we have done a lot of engagement, including neighborhood meetings and sessions with underrepresented groups, BIPOC seniors, persons with disabilities, a lot of online survey responses and website visits. So we really feel like we're getting the word out and we're going to continue to do that. In your packet, you're going to see and as well as on the website, GreatStreetsBTV.com, you'll see for each group that we've met with. In this case, we're looking at the neighborhood group from February. We've got a nice sort of graphical summary of what we're hearing and it's given us the ability to sort of look and see some sort of common themes that are emerging from different groups. In this case, residents, for example, we are seeing or talking about Main Street as a vital cultural and civic resource for both newcomers and longtime Burlingtonians. It's a gateway that should represent a diverse and rich culture, history and identity of all residents. At the bottom, we'll jump down. There's some specific concerns that businesses are expressing about the need to support future needs and maintenance, about coordinating this project with other city priorities. And then in the middle, we've got a good chunk of overlap where both businesses and residents want to see places for arts and programming for all ages. They want to see accessibility and safety of pedestrians. This is really paramount and they want to see a clear parking and wayfinding strategy to support the success of businesses. So again, there's a lot more to dig into there and we welcome you to do that in your packet or on the website. But next, we will take a look at the sort of toolkit of what we are looking at here for those six blocks of Main Street. What you will be making a decision on come May 23rd is going to be the alteration of the roadway curb alignment in part. And that is really to streamline the roadway as much as possible. The gray zone you see here to allow for two lanes of traffic and two lanes of parallel parking and then really give back as much as possible for amenities like bikeway, clear walkway of a really consistent width. Amenities like planting and seeding and art. And you'll see that on the length of Main Street, we're aiming for that section that you just saw. There are going to be some places that you're probably familiar with that City Hall at the Griffin, shown here on the right, where we don't have that full width and there are some encumbrances. And so that section you saw is sort of the goal for the design, but we'll have to deal with individual variations block to block as they come along. And here's just a little bit sort of by the numbers of what what exists today. So a roadway pavement with 50 to 70 feet that will get to a consistent 40 feet. We're going to have a reduction in parking spaces and ideas for how to mitigate that. We have no bike lanes today. We're going to have separated lanes for each direction, a more consistent sidewalk width, plenty of space for stormwater treatment and green space and really great opportunities that we don't see today for the kind of plazas and public arts that we hear the public clamoring for for this gateway. And with that, I will hand it to Steve Woods, who's going to talk about two ways of looking at those six blocks, assuming kind of a similar section or sort of a space allocation for each one, but with two different sort of themes. Thanks, Zana. Again, a lot of words you hear a lot today repeating. We understand that Main Street passing through three districts and touching four wards from Union Street to Battery looks to be both a gateway and a destination to your city. It wants to be representation of a rich culture of its people, its businesses and its community. This one option, this first option, looks at the artful gateways aspect that looks to represent a dignified, continuous main street for all blocks with emphasis at the intersections and a celebration of all of those artful gateways and aspects in the center. As I mentioned, the artful gateway strategy looks to find locations for art to occur within the six blocks. And so it looks to the end points, beginning at Union Street, all the way down to Battery Street and looking at each intersection as a location for art to occur, again, culminating between Church Street and St. Paul Street. There will be thought levels that you see happening on each of the each of the slides and in your packet. These are direct quotes that we've heard through the different engagement strategies and interactions that we've had, for example, cool cool sculptures that are interactive and inviting for kids and families is what we heard from the youth group. Each of the packets, you'll also have a plan that shows a simple rendered plan in the space. This is the one for artful gateways. A little quick test will show that there is an organized arrangement of shade tree planting where possible with sort of emphasis in gathering at the intersections. There's enlargements of each one to begin to show the locations of where bikeways would occur, where the green spaces may be showing in different spaces and then also indications of cross sections, which we'll see in the next slide. In this cross section, which is happening down near the western industry between Champlain Street and Battery Street, begins to show those thought bubbles again from the focus groups that we've reached and heard. It shows the information that Zana was talking about before with the cross section indicating the location of bikeways separated from the pedestrian movement that's happening along sidewalks, options for art and signage and also activation of street escape areas where there may be the ability to have a spillout from adjacent businesses. The middle section, the heart of it, if you will, right looks at a cross section between City Hall Park and the Flynn. This area of street we're looking to express a flush curb situation similar to Church Street, but then dedicating a lot of the space towards pedestrian activity in a safe manner. We also see the opportunity to express art in many ways, potentially above the street, acting as a gateway within this area. Also within the packet, you'll see enlarged plans that begin to express different zones that would occur on each street. Adjacency to spillout spaces and exit businesses, furnishing zones where planting and seeding would occur. And again, flexible parking spaces, which could be occupied during seasonal times or special times to be activated, again, advancing and encouraging more pedestrian activity along the streets. The second option called Lake City Mountain looks to identify the street in three zones that are expressive of the landscape changes and the characters of the lake, the City of Mountain from Lake Champlain through the cityscape up to the Green Mountains. This option focuses a lot on the green space and a softscape and planting that would occur within the streetscape. Looking to identify a more natural and mountain type scape towards the West, a more civic open green space in the center and then moving towards a more natural, but maybe a water's edge of planting type landscape to the West. This plan also included in the packet begins to show the slight differences based in the functional structure of the streetscape, where the bikeways began to take a more meandering approach, allowing for those larger pockets of green space to occur, still minding safety and separation between the pedestrian bike and the road. Digital cross section in this area, this one is shown closer to Union Street to the east, an area where the word encumbrances is shown and brought up again. In this section, you'll notice to the southern portion of Main Street, there is the indication of a multi-use path due to the encumbrances that are happening currently within that cross section, allowing for the safe travel of both pedestrian bicycles in this uphill side of the road. The plan that shows the different zones is also included in this area, showing the little nuances of an extended furniture zone space due to the movement of the bikeway, the opportunities for more continuous connections of green space, be it through shaded tree canopy adjacent to sidewalks or to stormwater management systems or should be located in proper locations along the street, understanding slope and visibility. We still see the opportunity for special amenities zones happening mostly at corners where we have expanded open space, hardscape space with the narrowing of bump outs and the easier passage of pedestrians in a shorter time frame and shorter distance from one side of the street to the other, improving safety of cross-exit intersections. I'll hand it back to Evan to talk about the next steps. OK, so we recently had our second neighborhood meeting as well as our second business meeting, City Council tonight, City Council on the 23rd. And then once we get through the refinement of the concepts, which we're doing this spring, then we'll be into the design phase and we're going to continue to reach out to the public and different city entities, all the participants that Chapin mentioned earlier, we're going to continue to coordinate with all those groups, including BED, who is really acting with the sub-emiss for the design of the lighting. And we're going to continue that throughout the design process. So we are asking for feedback from anyone who's on our mailing list or anyone we've talked to by May 14th. I continue to help to refine these concepts and we'll be back in front of this group on the 23rd. And from there, we're going to jump into the design and keep moving right along. And let's see, seven twenty eight. So I think we're about out of time and I think we're about out of slides. Do you have anything else for the and we can always come back? I think at this point, team, we are wrapped up and prepared for Q&A. Is that correct? Yeah, yes. OK, so we'll have to put that on hold for just a couple of minutes. It's now seven thirty and time for the public forum. Seems as though the beautiful weather outside is at least one reason why we have a fairly quiet gathering inside Contoise. There are there is one speaker who is signed up to speak who is inside Contoise. And then there are a couple of speakers who requested to speak during the public forum who are online. All of them are Burlington residents. So we'll just simply go with who is in Contoise and then go to the online speakers. The speaker who requested requested two minutes. I don't see this was given to you. Does not and does not appear to be here. That's Todd LaCroy. So if you're if you're in the building and hear this, you're certainly welcome to come back and speak. That is the only person who is asked to speak, who's in Contoise. There are a couple of people that have asked to speak who are online and they are the first speaker and they'll be given two minutes so the timer will start shortly. The speaker, the first person and I'm assuming is former counselor Sharon Busher. Sharon, I know you had spoken during the Board of Finance meeting. I'm assuming that you would like to speak during the City Council meeting as well. So I've enabled your microphone and we'd love to hear from you. Thank you very much, President Paul. Yes, it's a different topic. I want to speak to item 7.04 and I wanted to first start by saying that when a counselor Bergman was prior to his election, he was my staff person and I worked with then Gene Bergman to NBED to require new buildings to have renewable energy sources that would heat and cool. I was no longer part of the council, but I was very happy to see that that was put in place. And I do support this next step, which is the development of decarbonization policies. I very much agree with the phase-in approach of major renovations, city buildings and large commercial buildings. I do have a couple of comments regarding the timeline. I am concerned about the timeline for BED to report back to the council by July 18th. I'm sure they'll speak for themselves, but that seems like a very tight timeline for such a big task. And the other thing that I wanted to say that it's one thing to create policies. It's another to figure out how to fund this conversion, which has always been the issue. And I think that it would be very helpful if indeed there were some examples like what it would cost to do City Hall or what it would cost to do dealer.com. So we had an idea of what we're talking about. The last thing I wanted to say because I'm running out of time, is that in the resolution, it talks about major renovations, but it doesn't specify whether those are commercial or residential. And I think it's important for us to know that. Having said that, I'm going to end. Thank you so much. Councillor Buscher. There's two other people who submitted forms online. If you are online and wish to speak during public forum, you can complete the form on the City website. Or you can just simply go to brilingtonvt.gov slash public forum. There is a form that will come up. You complete the form and the answers that you give will come into a spreadsheet that I'll see so that we can call on you. There are two other speakers. One of them is Eileen Christensen. Eileen, I'm sorry. I can't find you online. If you want to raise your hand, use the raise hand function, that would be fine. The other person is Keith Pillsbury and Keith. I have located you and have enabled your microphone. I believe, yes. Okay. Am I ready to start? Yes, you are. Go ahead, Keith. Thank you, Councilor Powell. I'm Keith Pillsbury. I've lived on University Terrace for 48 years. I served as a ward clerk for ward 8 since its inception. The ad hoc committee said that ward 8 doesn't work. Here's some things you should know. There are not enough people able to volunteer in the ward 8 polls, even when I publicize our needs throughout the city and university campus. Oftentimes volunteers do not show up even though they're expected. And our volunteers are usually new every election. Elected and inspectors of elections oftentimes move out of the ward during their term. Many volunteers are needed to help with the high volume of same-day registration. Getting 30 signatures of registered voters to put on the ballot, to get your name put on the ballot, is a difficult task that can take weeks of knocking on hundreds of doors of unregistered voters. Do you have that problem? University campus living units are off limits to non- student residents or candidates. According to UVM, 4,250 residents of ward 8 live on campus. Our majority of your voters inaccessible to went to you when you were campaigning. Distributing literature on campus is not allowed in living units. I have run for office and lost several times in ward 1. I believe they were fair elections. In 2020, I experienced that ward 8 did not have a functioning democracy. I got my signatures after knocking on hundreds of unregistered voters' doors. My opponent was given extra time past the deadline to get his signatures. I knocked on every door off campus, distributed several different flyers and was asked consistently, did I have an opponent? Basically what I'm trying to say is that the democracy in ward 8 is broken. We are not able to have access to all the voters. That ward 8 should be replaced with a ward that has a balanced community. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. Again, there was one other speaker who had signed up online. That is Eileen Christensen. I was not able to locate you. We'll go back to the in-person because there is another person who's also submitted a form. Todd, I had called your name, but you're welcome to come now and speak if you'd like. Have a seat. I think you should be aware that democracy is slipping away. Just this last week, after a decade of talking about police brutality that I have survived and others have survived and you failed to bring real reform, the police, one called in the middle of the night to me being threatened, you know what they did? They showed up and they charged me without even investigating with filing a fake police report. Yes, that's called fascism. Are you aware that fascism is something that officer Henry himself has said he is happy to be? To me personally. And I reported this to Bernie Sanders' office and that the people that I have to apply to for justice in this situation are the very people who have very vocally to my face said, I'm not a human to them. Don't you think there's something wrong with that? I call in the middle of the night because I'm getting threatened and I'm being prosecuted for needing help. Let me remind you for 10 years, even 20, my journalism and my activism has been warning you that your rights are slipping away. You just lost your voting rights. You just lost your abortion rights. Looks like I was right. But you people still don't seem concerned. I'm here to remind you tonight, if you're okay with them treating me this way, remember that you are all next because I and people like me were on the front lines of protecting our rights including yours. And if you don't care about me, then you don't even care about yourself or your children and that's honestly true. So what are we going to do about this? I'm being prosecuted. Thank you for needing defense. Thank you. Are you kidding me? You're okay? Thank you. Our next speaker that's inside con choice is Christopher Aaron Felker. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here tonight to speak on agenda item 7.04. I reluctantly and with some reservations do support the transition of city buildings and new builds in this town. I echo Ms. Buscher's concerns regarding major renovations, whether that is for commercial buildings or private residences. I also worry about the combined cost and how that will affect and impact Burlingtonians and the cost of living in town. I appreciate Councillor Dang's amendment and I advise this council to proceed cautiously so not to contribute to the rising cost of living in Burlington. I appreciate that we want to transition our buildings to more green energy. But we can't do so on the backs of working class Burlingtonians who can barely make ends meet today. We know that the cost of living and the market rate for housing in Burlington is out of reach for many people and we can barely keep it together. On the backs of last year's property tax reassessment which has affected and impacted many Burlingtonians which I also appreciate the property tax adjustment that you put out earlier today so thank you. We have to try and mitigate some of the damage that's caused by some of our actions and I encourage you to just proceed cautiously and be mindful of the fact that many Burlingtonians aren't as privileged as us. Some of us have to work two or three jobs just to be able to afford to live in this city so please be mindful. Cost of living is continuing to go up. Let's not contribute to that. Thank you. Thank you very much. There are, since we, since I had let people know how to sign up, there are actually two more people that have signed up for public forum that are online. One Burlington and one non-Burlington resident. The Burlington resident is Lynn Wood and I believe I have found Lynn and hope this is, hope this is Lynn Wood's welcome and I've enabled your microphone. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Okay, great. So my concerns and I'll try to keep this short is one of the strategies that BED is recommending is to install heat pumps in our Burlington homes and I have some concerns with that because I do have heat pumps in my home and when the temperatures get below 10 degrees, which is a very common thing here in Vermont and if it's windy is actually a little higher than 10 degrees, more like 15, the heat pump is not effective at that temperature and it requires you to have supplemental heat. So I'm going to say apprehensive about the success of these heat pumps and I also work at a job where we do install heat pumps across many of our buildings and even with the most efficient heat pumps we use, which are designed for minus 20 degrees, still we've had problems with them only maintaining a 55 degree space. So that would be my first concern. My second concern would be if suddenly we're not able to install heat pumps on the electric grid, is BED ready for that? I do completely appreciate being energy conscious. I just don't know that we're quite ready for it in the time frame that we're looking to achieve these things. Eight years really does not give folks a lot of time to invest in the grid and to make sure that they're able to make all of these improvements in their house. What will that do as far as the stability of our electric system? That's really all I had to say. Great. Thank you so much. The last speaker that we have is Luce Hillman and I have found it's a great pleasure to be here. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, my name is Luce Hillman. I'm Executive Director of Facilities Management at the University of Vermont. And my only comment on item 7.04 is that UVM be part of the conversation since we are BED's largest customer, I believe in the city. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do not see anyone else who has signed up and there's no one else who has signed up in con toys. So it's 7.45. We will close the public forum and we will close the public forum. Thank you. Director Spencer, you had said that your presentation portion of the program is you're good. We'd love to hear from the council with any questions or concerns you have so we can answer those prior to the May 23rd council meeting. Great. Are there councillors that have questions or comments? Thank you so much. Thank you so much for everybody who put this presentation together. So I do have a concern with regards to parking and kind of how that might make it a little bit more difficult for people with mobility issues to access main street. I know you had some ways to sort of mitigate this. But I do have a question for you. I'm concerned that the heavy leaning on technology through parking management app, real-time updates of other parking availability might not be accessible to certain populations such as people who are elderly or those with physical disabilities that impact motor control. So I just wanted to kind of voice that concern and see if there are any other ways that you all could foresee mitigating that change. Great. Thank you, Councillor House. I'll start out and then turn over to the team. Definitely hear your concern. We had in the larger presentation which was in the council packet a full page on strategies. One of the strategies we are looking at is on side streets, can we maximize spaces on the intersecting streets to provide good proximal access. We are proposing still 90 spaces in this alternative. If the will of the council and the public are to limit the kind of activation spaces at intersections, we may be able to accommodate a few additional other spaces. So that said, we have a whole range of strategies that we seek to employ and we have a year, year and a half before construction gets underway. Team, anything to add? I think I would just add both with this project as well as others that the DPW is doing, we really do look at the neurodiverse population that's going to be using this area of town and would seek to review how the regulations exist throughout this corridor, which spaces might be designated as accessible, which ones might promote a little higher turnover to be responsible to the businesses as well as the services that people are accessing. The last point I would bring up is that one of the choices to make the middle section of Main Street curbless is to provide better accessibility across the street between the parking, between the pedestrian spaces as well as the businesses. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. Councillor Chang is next followed by Councillor Hightower. Thank you, President. Excuse me. Thank you, President Paul. I think my first, it's a comment and I just wanted to thank basically the administration, DPW and the team because for the first time about the project, they visited the REIB committee and received extensive amount of feedback and also next steps and hope that they follow up on those feedbacks as well in terms of engagement with the community. I just have to say it was well done and thank you for doing it. My question is more for the designers, the landscape designers and was just wondering other than the arts elements of this project, what are elements of this project that some blocks can have while all the blocks will not have and I'm saying from the perspective of what is South Venuski and Tear Street marketplace would have that battery park and South Champlain would not have in terms of the design and taking the arts outside of the equation. I just have to start with that. I think that we have not fully decided on any type of give or take or less or more between different locations in the engagement process that I thank you for recognizing that we've done so far. It's all about trying to find opportunities for best fit given the context of the space users of the space and opportunities that the space may offer. I think there are sort of intrinsic qualities to the space now that we begin to learn and continue to learn from that can be expressed more greatly beyond the arts be it through additional space for gathering or the flexibility to be used during seasonal times because of approximate use. I think that would be great but other than that we continue to look beyond this project and beyond this work to see what those spaces could offer better in the space of the location. Thank you. It seems on the 23rd that's when the City Council would make the decision. And I just was wondering what could change in between that's already not in the plan. Like I'll start with that one. Online at least we're getting a little bit of an odd echo with the sound just as an FYI and then maybe Evan can also follow up with their process but really on the 23rd what the design team is looking for is the fundamental change of the width of the road and the curb line. It's one of the things that you guys are charged with setting and so it's moving the curb line from that 50 to 70 foot mark down to around a 40 foot mark for this corridor to be able to speak to kind of how the design might evolve after that. Yeah right now we're trying to get set on what we want for the traveling configurations of ball bouts or even roundabouts possibly at the intersections and what's going to happen behind the curb lines in general terms but we do have weeks and months ahead of us to really start to refine what it is we're going to have in a particular location and this is a city project you know this is not a consultant project we're here to help you make those decisions about what you want to see at all the different walks some examples maybe we've heard there were previously stormwater concerns at the Winnieski Avenue intersection right that's a known flooding location so should we be considering doing things like more stormwater treatment where we know there's a problem like that at City Hall it's already a gathering place for people should we make the City Hall block more of a plaza to extend that area where people can congregate and share their ideas and artwork and things like that and then at the lower end of the street towards battery it seems to be more of a walking lane with a lot of trees today right should we keep that kind of theme down at that lower end all of these things will be deciding with input from the city as we go along in the coming months and thank you thank you very much for all of you and last question President Paul and this is specific to the responses from the businesses about the project online their engagement it seemed they talked about how do you call it they talked about maintenance right and Chopin this is a question for you about have you made like a table or dollop figure based on you know the elements that will be implemented for this project the corridor what would be the maintenance figures for each one of them if for example we want to have a roundabout right what will it take to maintain it versus just having bike lanes and keeping going have you made that and if not are you considering making one so we know what maintenance could look like in the future as well go ahead yes thanks I think the city is already starting to get a handle on what some future maintenance may look like in terms of when you look at St. Paul street we have some stormwater basins out there today that will build a couple years ago and we have pervious pavers which the city is now in charge of maintaining so we are starting to assess information that's coming from limited grade streets project and we're going to be taking that and having a careful look at those elements that we already know and looking at other future maintenance concerns with the project so that the city does have a more informed handle on all of these things we're talking about adding I don't have that answer today but it is one of the things that we'll continue to look at and assess carefully as we go along thank you no further question thank you councillor councillor high tower to be followed by councillor Barlow yeah my first is not to get too into the weeds but is a question on just one of the things noted that there would be permeable parallel parking strips I don't know if you can just talk a little bit to what that design feature is and what that means great I'll turn that over to the design team to talk about permeable pavement and pavers yeah with this project we do hope to continue what the city did get going on St. Paul Street which is to have some areas at least of permeable pavers so the water runs off the sidewalk or runs off the pavers themselves and infiltrates into the ground where those pavers are and we are thinking about taking the parking spaces and making those permeable so unlike what was done on St. Paul Street is there an opportunity here to increase the amount of permeable pavement that's out there so that we can do even better job at infiltrating stormwater it's one of the ideas that we're thinking about for enhancing the stormwater infiltration among others but it's something that we're considering so it would be basically permeable pavers where we have parking lanes thank you and then this is more of a comment than a question but also around the public participation as other councillors have done I think that it is really hard to get public participation early on in a project because it's hard to get the feedback so I don't think it's ideal that it's not been as broad and diverse maybe as we want to this point but I think that the way to mitigate that is just to continue to kind of make progress as you do but then as you get to the end stages being really open to getting changes in feedback that are more drastic maybe than you would want to make later on in the game because that's when people who haven't heard about it are maybe hearing about it and giving you that input and so I guess I would just encourage the design team to be flexible on making changes later on as they you do maybe get that more broad and more diverse input and not being so fixed to one concept because we decided on it early which I realize is the worst thing you could say to a design team but there we go right thank you councillor Hightower councillor Barlow to be followed by councillor Carpenter thank you President Paul I just had I know I've asked this question before maybe in Duke or maybe here but just to to revisit it for constituents that I've heard from are concerned about the loss of parking could you remind us how many parking spaces are being lost and what measures are being taken to mitigate that parking loss thanks great who wants to handle that thanks Laura I can start I can start there so with the slide the information that's in your packet there's 157 spaces out there currently right now the concept that's in front of you is showing 90 to remain on the streets so it's a it's something that we recognize to transform main street we're rebalancing the way that the street is laid out and the different modes of transportation that it's going to serve but we know that people outside of the immediate downtown and outside of our alternative transportation service do still need a way to get to the city and so this consulting team is working on helping with an inventory and a parking study throughout this corridor that should help support the project in way finding people to where available parking is within a 5 to 10 minute walk of of the different parts of the corridor it's just one of many strategies there's a slide inside of your your larger packet that talks about all the other kind of nuanced things that are that are floating around as part of the mitigation of the change in the parking system it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a sense of place and people want to be there and people don't mind walking all four or five blocks up and down that street it's a it's a sense of place and it's a sense of place and it's a sense of place and people don't mind walking all four or five blocks up and down that street all night long to do their shopping even though there's no parking on that street so to me Main Street has the same potential we're going to still be offering a lot of parking plenty of parking but it's making Main Street more of a great place to be that will assure the continued great thank you Councillor Barlow Councillor Carpenter thank you some of my comments are similar to council house and to Councillor Barlow I too am very concerned about the parking I was just down there this morning and I frequent lower Main Street several businesses because of the loss of the parking spots by rerouting the bike lanes I could not find a spot it took me many blocks to get a spot down there and that's only I don't know how many spots you lost there for the bike lines 30 or something so I just really think we should exercise caution in terms of accessibility getting to those businesses and if we want the businesses to grow we need to be accommodating somewhat different than church street where we have two large parking structures so we don't have that down at that end of town and I don't know that we're going to get one that end of town so whatever you say would be helpful I want to sort of specifically next week you're going to ask us about the road width does that mean if we agree it's sort of a done deal that you're going to take away all the diagonal by making that one decision what have we decided thank you Councillor Carpenter yes the concept around changing line and creative road which is the council's authority is that turning the parking from diagonal parking to parallel parking is what unlocks the additional space for stormwater for the bike lanes for the outdoor activation for seating etc so we would be seeking council direction on that basic design element to councillors high towers question about design and ongoing kind of listening within the framework of that curb to curb accessible spaces need to be here or public outdoor seating needs to be here versus private seating those types of design evolutions can certainly happen but fundamentally the key decision we're looking for on May 23rd is should it generally be a 40 foot curb to curb which does inform the parking to be parallel not diagonal if there's additional information that you need about that or direction happy to get that and then try to respond to that prior to the meeting thank you thank you Councillor Carpenter Councillor Bergman no there we go like that I heard a comment regarding the possibility of roundabouts are they in the potential mix yes and Evan can discuss that we've been charged with looking at how the intersection should operate along this corridor they likely will either be signalized as they are today or potentially be some of them may be converted to roundabouts and that decision is going to be based on a lot of different components things that you can well imagine safety property impacts how they operate how much they may affect other adjacent intersections and how bikes work to circulate around them and those sorts of things so one of the first things we'll be doing as we come out of the concept phase is to really take a deeper dive and to further evaluate the intersections and how they operate and make a recommendation to the city then whether or not any of these should be converted to roundabouts or signalized or whatever the case may be but DPW has asked the consultant team to look at this closely and provide a fair evaluation of what we think should be done there and make a recommendation my experience in Montpelier in Manchester and one other community which I'm forgetting around roundabouts is that they can work very well so thank you thank you Councillor Berkman Councillor Freeman thank you I just wanted to speak towards the parking aspect quickly our parking spaces I'm glad that the design has a lot of emphasis on why I can speak on walking and biking infrastructure I think that and you know folks who are working on this design more closely or in sort of city design more closely can weigh in on my personal opinion but I think that if we continue to not you know only create infrastructure for cars then in my mind that doesn't alleviate the demand for parking because then everyone is traveling by car and so I think also likewise to the aspect of mobility and accessibility if you have people who are able to walk or bike but they are primarily using cars because there is not good walking and biking infrastructure then that puts a higher sort of congestion on the roads when there are people who do rely on cars and sort of you know for their mobility reasons you know if they're using a wheelchair I do think like there are some I know some people told me who use wheelchairs that like the brick feature on church street is incredibly uncomfortable and like potholes are incredibly uncomfortable and I think those are interesting things about you know sort of our infrastructure that can be looked at I think that the point about the accessibility of the sort of the app features or whatever is something to think about I certainly advocate for sort of inclusive design but I don't think that from my perspective building out comprehensive walk bike infrastructure and reducing the amount of parking spaces is not inherently exclusive is not inherently anti inclusive I guess or anti accessible I think that there's actually a lot of reason that that it puts that it means that the people who someone who needs to be in a car or in a transport van or whatever it is can be and then people who can walk and bike will and that actually makes congestion better and actually gives more spaces and accessible parking spaces for people who really will need them so I'm not as concerned but I will certainly weigh in as the project continues and thank you for the work that's been done on this. Thanks Councillor Freeman this is obviously not going to be our last shot at having this conversation there's no one else left in the queue and since if there aren't I'll thank you director director Spencer and the entire DPW team and all of the consultants that you have online and my understanding certainly is that if councillors in the next two weeks have questions that you and your team are available and would welcome those questions or comments, concerns anything that comes to mind. You said it better than I could. Okay great. Can I add one thing and one plug is just a reminder that we're taking comments from the public and others through the 14th and so if you guys as councillors maybe wanted to echo some of the messaging that we've talked about there so everybody is aware of the project it would be appreciated. Great thank you very much so with that I would just welcome a motion to accept the attached communications to the agenda item and we will place them on file. Thank you councillor Freeman seconded by councillor Hanson all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Thank you thank you. Thank you very much. The next item on our agenda is just left me. I believe the next item on our agenda is item number 5 the climate emergency reports I'm sort of my for whatever reason it sort of left me. Thank you. Thank you very much. For whatever reason it sort of left me but I believe that's the next item. Is there any councillor or would the administration have a climate emergency report to offer? Seeing none we can close that item and go on to the consent agenda on the consent agenda I'd welcome a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated. So moved. Thank you councillor Bergman seconded by councillor Hanson all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Any opposed. Thank you we have approved our consent agenda which moves us on to our moves us to the deliberative agenda. Actually get it now let's see. Okay so the first item on our deliberative agenda is a public hearing on the community block grant and home proposed allocations for 2022 and 2019 action plans for the housing and community development. There are I see director Pine here from CEDO before the public forum would you did you want to give a brief overview that would be great we would welcome you. Thank you very much I want for the record it's Brian Pine the director of the city's community and economic development office and tonight I am here to talk about the item which is regarding the use of community development block grant funds and the home investment partnership funds as well as a slight change to our citizen participation for the allocation or should say the recommendation for how to allocate community development block grant funds I'll try and stay away from the acronym CDBG because when I use it people I think their eyes glaze over much quicker. So the purpose of the hearing which is required by actually let me just mention that my colleagues who know way more about this than I do are Christine Curtis and Todd Rawlings so if there's detailed questions that I can't answer at the level of my knowledge I will be looking to them so I think they're both on as panelists and their great work has should go not go unrecognized because this is a significant increase in federal dollars over the last year or two that CEDO has managed and it's in response to both the pandemic and just really growing needs just as summary the community development block grant program has been around for just over 50 years and it is a program intended to reduce poverty with a focus on housing economic development and some social services that are broadly described as public service in the jargon of community development block grants the essentially the city council tonight is asking to approve the annual action plan which is HUD speak for how you're going to spend the money that you're granted and so this money comes to the city as a formula not as a competitive application we don't necessarily have to apply for the money however we have to show that we've complied with all of the requirements to be able to receive the funds and the city became an entitlement community 40 years ago right about now so this is a program that began in for Burlington's sake at the local level right around 1982 I just want to make sure that it's clear that next year the amount that you all will be looking at is about half of what you're looking at tonight for dollar amounts in the spirit of sort of full disclosure and managing expectations of funding is unusual and essentially what we are proposing is the allocation of anticipated revenue for what again what the federal government calls program year 22 we all call fiscal year 23 so it's the fiscal year that begins July 1 22 and goes through June to June 30th of 23 the amount in funding for that is $706,200 that is community development block grant entitlement funds there's also $415,000 in new home funds and home funds are to support housing development and housing preservation and rehabilitation all the information of course is contained in the packet but for the benefit of the public I want to at least mention that there's also in this is a small amount of money that's called program that's $30,000 that just means money that has been paid back to the city for loans perhaps that were made in the past and those loans came due and in addition we have about 600 we do have 640,000 of what we refer to as carry over funds from prior entitlement years and there's a little bit of urgency to get those funds spent otherwise we start to risk losing them and we don't obviously want to do that so I will also point out that we have this pot of money that HUD calls CARES Act funds or coronavirus relief funds we just refer to it as our extra COVID money and that is elaborated in the materials that you all have tonight what we were able to do which is unusual is allocate more funds to what are called public service activities because that COVID money didn't come with a public service limit normally if you get a million bucks only 150,000 that can be used for public service but in this case HUD said use it for what you need to as long as it's eligible we're not going to say public service or development when we say development we refer to housing or economic development and public services you know things like the food shelf and resource and programs that you see in the table that you were provided so I wanted to highlight those points and to obviously answer any questions great thank you director pine we'll go to the council after but let's do the public hearing so with that I'll open the public hearing if there's anyone with us in person or online who wishes to speak during the public hearing if you're online please use the raise hand function and we'll enable your microphone in person you can similarly raise your hand and we'll recognize you I'm just going to look to see if there's anyone online who has a raised hand do not see anyone don't see anyone here in person going once going twice with that we will close the public hearing item 7.02 is a resolution to authorize the city to submit the 2022 burlington one-year action plan and amended 2019 burlington one-year action plan councilor hightower yes I'd like to waive the reading and adopt the resolution thank you motion has been made to waive the reading and adopt the resolution is there a second to that motion seconded by councilor travers does that mean that you do not want the floor back I just want to say thank you to the staff from CEDO we're continuing to work on this and amending it and thinking about all the needs of the city and their work on this and would ask folks to direct any questions to director pine great thank you councilor hightower are there councillors who wish to speak to this motion council again so my understanding is there's councillor jang and councillor freeman is there anyone else who wishes to speak to this okay councillor freeman please go ahead we've tried to allocate about 10 minutes for this and if you can just keep that in mind thank you director pine I was looking at the is this correct on the website the CEDO 2022 draft annual action plan this is like an up-to-date break is this like a are these formerly what we've done or is this projected what we're hoping to I'm sorry I'm so good sure it is very actually quite confusing I had to go over a few times with my staff today so there's a pot of money which is the cares fact funds are the money that we've already received essentially and we do we need to basically expend those dollars we also have some old previous year CDBG community development block grant funds that we get spent and then we have what is projected to arrive or come available to us in July and we're putting it all together into this action plan so it's really a combination of all and that's why when you add it up the this community development block grant funds comes to a million three hundred and seventy six thousand dollars so yeah I was wondering I guess I have two questions which is one how I'm just curious like how like when I see like the you know it's like for example like well this is from I think this is 2019 but like you know pathways steps I'm just curious how some of those is that all determined by the process that the NPAs go through or not the NPAs the advisory board that comes out of the NPA sort of elected board or is that a process that just CEDO undertakes to sort of know the public process is as you described it is the community development block grant advisory committee okay and they review all the applications and make scoring and then recommendations and they debate it over the course of a few meetings and that comes to the mayor comes to CEDO and the mayor as a recommendation and this is brought forward without without changes to that so that is essentially okay and my understanding is that we're we're still keeping with that process right yes okay and those meetings are public and public services are yes and so folks can attend and sort of I should I should note though that okay there's once the change in the citizen participation plan is is rather kind of nuanced but basically if there if if there are insufficient demands applications for funds there's there's never a lack of demand for public service funds which think of as like social services those funds are always exceed the amount requested far exceeds what's available but there's times when the economic development and housing development fund requests don't actually meet what we have available and so as the year goes we get we run into a timing problem where if we don't allocate it during the year we're going to get kind of stuck with the timeliness issue with HUD so rather than re go through go through the process of soliciting both both soliciting the proposals and bringing it back through the review process the amended plan that you have in front of you does call for those decisions to be on a case by case but it's it's it happens rarely but it did happen this past year where we needed to allocate the funding and we didn't have the time to wait for that process. That's interesting well this I mean it looks good you know grants are great money free money is great so this is great I've always you know I've participated in the MPA of you know served on council I think that the CDPG process is something else I've always sort of been interested in but you know I've not always had capacity before it's it's a pretty cool thing and thank you for all the work that you and the department have put together and I'm excited to yeah just see yeah for it to continue I think yeah the the yeah I love that it's the advisory board with the neighborhood planning assemblies it's it's it's a pretty cool process so thank you thanks councillor Freeman councillor Jang thank you president Paul couple questions and the one the first one is basically about the usage of these funds these grants and maybe Todd and also director pine can talk about whether or not there are all the municipalities or the county in the state of Vermont are receiving the same funds as a first question sure the city of Burlington is is what's called an entitlement community so we get our funds directly from the federal government the only other entity in Vermont that receives funds directly is the state of Vermont and their allocation is something like seven or eight million a year so they get considerably more and those funds are to be used in communities other than Burlington so there's Burlington gets its piece and then the rest of the state has access to that other pot of money okay thank you and now can you speak to basically why more of Burlington funds are supporting local organization that's serving people throughout the county or beyond and also as a first question and the second one is for the mayor to maybe speak about on page four it seemed this money the CDB did address some quality early child care issues in the city of Burlington and was wondering are we still using the pilot fund or we using part of this part of this this fund also to support the early childhood initiative sure I'll take a stab at the first part of that question the way that the federal government requires municipalities to report on the use of these funds is to show specifically who are the Burlington residents benefiting who are you serving and so these are actual Burlington residents who are low they meet the definition of low and moderate income and so we need to report very specifically in the outcomes for those residents so that these dollars even though they go to organizations serving maybe a regional population these dollars actually serve Burlington residents thank you thanks Councillor Jang is there anyone else who has any or actually I'm sorry you would ask the question of the mayor I apologize thank you President Paul and Councillor Jang I may not sure may ask you to clarify part of your question but you're asking is this an opportunity with the CDG funds to expand the Burlington Early Learning initiative beyond what we're already doing and we potentially and there actually have been years where there have been where we have encouraged the advisory committee to consider investments in high quality childcare organizations as part of the process and there have been over the years significant expenditures of CDBG dollars for those programs I think Brian if you see it differently help me out here but where we stand currently with the Burlington Early Learning initiative is we are getting those funds out and deployed as quickly as we can we've continued within the program within the funds that we have set aside we have been able to make we had an announcement of another one just last week of course you were there we've made these very substantial capacity grant awards and we've been funding the first steps scholarship program and I think in no year have we fully expended the $500,000 a year that we generally have been reserving for this we cut that back during the pandemic for one year but we have sorry the $250,000 that we've been investing here I think as we look to expand that program and we are seeking to expand it at a certain point we will run up against the limits of the kind of reserve funding we have for it in which case I think CDBG will be a place to potentially look for supplemental funding I think we are feeling pretty good about where we currently stand is that the way you see it and I would just note that that falls under this very limited portion of the funds called public service so that's a very small portion of our dollars so on an annual basis you know it's 15% of roughly $700,000 so it's really quite a pretty nominal amount it's a little over $100,000 so we got to be really strategic about how those dollars are used and we try to make sure they're leveraging others but in child care is absolutely a good and eligible and appropriate use I thank you and maybe also staff development in child care I think the mayoral initiative about early child has been great addition and I think the results are being felt now by service providers here thank you thank you very much thank you Councillor Jang any other councillors with comments or questions seeing no other questions from councillors we'll go to a vote the motion in front of us is to authorize the city to submit the 2022 Burlington one-year action plan and the amended 2019 Burlington one-year action plan all those in favor of the motion please say aye thank you any opposed the motion passes unanimously thank you so much Brian for your good work on this important plan the next item on our agenda is item 7.03 which is a resolution an amendment to appendix B of our rules and regulations of the Burlington City Council regarding the addition of the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee to rule 4a standing committees Councillor Jang thank you President Paul and yes I want to make the motion for the resolution to amend appendix B of regulation of the Burlington City Council additions of racial equity inclusion of belonging committee rule 4a standing committee by me and on the second after a second on the floor back okay great thank you so motion has been made we need a second seconded by Councillor Carpenter Councillor Jang the floor is all yours wonderful and as you know this is very straightforward I feel like the city we just forget to update you know the appendix B rule to include the Burlington racial equity and belonging committee just asking this city attorney's office to make that change and thank you hope that we also want to move forward thank you are there any councillors who wish to speak to this motion seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favour of the motion to amend appendix B as per Councillor Jang's motion please say aye aye all those opposed the motion passes unanimously Councillor Jang thanks so much for taking this on and taking this to completion I know it's been something that we is important and glad that we got it done we're going to move on we have two more items on our deliberative agenda the first is item 7.04 which is a resolution regarding decarbonizing all buildings in Burlington by 2030 sponsored by councillors Hanson Bergman and Travers councillor Hanson thank you I will wave the reading and move to adopt the resolution with the inclusion of the amendments that are posted by from councillor Jang okay a motion has been made to approve the resolution along with the amendments made by councillor Jang second to that motion seconded by councillor Travers did you want the floor back yes go ahead councillor Hanson the floor is yours great thank you as many people are already aware definitely everyone in this room and many in the community the governor recently signed into law the charter change that was approved in March of 2021 which gives the city unique authority among municipalities the authority to regulate thermal energy systems not only in new construction but also existing buildings so this now gives us a huge opportunity to really I think lead the country in this area and buildings are the second leading source of emissions so this is a huge opportunity to lead on the climate crisis it's also an opportunity to have healthier and safer homes and businesses for burlingtonians save people money and keep a lot more money in our local economy so I'm really excited to get to work quickly now that we have this authority and start developing policies that will allow us to really accelerate that transition of our buildings off of fossil fuels so thank you to our wonderful municipal-owned utility Burlington Electric Department for being willing to take the lead on this work and help us develop policies that are going to move us forward thank you great thank you Councillor Hanson are there councillors who wish to speak to this motion if there are and you could raise your hand so we know how many there are that would be great great so there's Councillor Barlow and then we'll go to the Mayor Councillor Barlow go ahead please yes I I'm supportive of the net zero roadmap 2030 roadmap and I also realize that decarbonizing buildings represents one of the most significant challenges and getting us there is a resolution but I am also cautious about any policy we make because I don't want us making policy that makes Burlington less desirable or less affordable to live in or do business than surrounding communities and I've heard even today on Facebook and the New North End Facebook group and through email that their constituents who are concerned about any policy development would include residential and we also heard during public comment concerns about this as well and I did see a general manager Springer here and I was wondering if it would be okay to sort of address those concerns to make sure that we understand what the implications to residential would be with any kind of policy development I'm not sure Director Springer I know you have Chris Burns with you having us Director of Energy Services you may need to hit the button on that or is it already on yeah it's on okay so I appreciate Councillor Barlow's concern our understanding of what the resolution would accomplish is to direct us working with the Department of Permitting and Inspections to come back to the council with an initial report on July 18th but probably quite a bit more work following that focusing primarily on new construction major renovations city buildings, large commercial buildings so specifically not focusing this effort on existing residential buildings those are buildings that we're providing significant incentives for right now for heat pumps for heat pump water heaters for a number of different technologies we're making some headway there I think there's more we can do over time but some of the solutions that we might look at in this space for new construction or even for large existing commercial buildings would likely have to be different in terms of what we're going to do to help residential move in the direction that we want in terms of net zero and I really think of it as you know in terms of larger commercial facilities you may have a facility where somebody is managing a capital budget is making decisions year after year in terms of what equipment they're going to replace and on what schedule and if we can have a policy that makes sure that as folks are replacing equipment for example that they're doing so with renewable heating systems that will help us with our net zero 2030 initiatives and ensure that we don't invest in infrastructure now that's 20 or 25 year lifespan and is fossil fuel infrastructure without renewable fuel so that's one of the things that's on my mind primarily as part of this work but like so one of the comments I saw in from one constituent was they were worried that if they had to replace a hot water heater that was a gas fired hot water heater for instance in the next seven years or after we by 2030 they would have to do so with something other than gas I guess that they might want to continue to use that wouldn't be considered a major renovation would it I mean No I think and Chris could speak to this as well I think when we're talking about major renovations we're talking about a building and it could be an existing building but it's being significantly undertaking work it's not just a permit for a water heater there's a lot of additional construction work happening there that's accurate it's think about an existing building where you're going to take it down to the studs you're going to replace the windows you're going to replace the HVAC you are basically going to start almost anew those are the incremental opportunities while you're doing that major work okay thank you thanks Councillor Barlow we'll go to the mayor and then to Councillor Carpenter Mayor Weinberger thank you President Paul I want to speak to this cost issue a little bit further and then some broader just a broader point one thing that thing that I think is important to keep in mind in this debate is that the non fossil fuel options are not always more expensive and that statement becomes truer over time as well some of these solutions such as heat pumps or other electric innovations that may not have been cost competitive five years ago a very different story today the efficacy of the technology improves considerably over time fair important comments we heard in the public forum but this is an area of great technological evolution and change I don't think anyone should think that just because we are putting rules in place that we would potentially put regulations that could include financial regulations in place for people away from fossil fuels towards these electric renewable options isn't necessarily a cost increase on the builder and we found this when talking even getting ready for the the ordinances that we've already put in place that required that is a primary heating source in new construction their thermal regulation that when we were talking to builders many of them said much of that primary heating source is really not a problem in many new construction situations today it is going to complete getting entirely rid of fossil fuels where there becomes problems and I think we we're cognizant of that and I think what we'll come forward with is going to be proposals that recognize that reality so I guess the major point I just don't want to be last year just because we're pushing people towards electrification in many situations and increasing number of situations that is not increasing the cost then to just a broader point I'm excited this resolution is coming forward tonight the administration worked with Councillor Hanson and the other co-sponsors to make sure that this came forward quickly the administration was very engaged in Montpelier this year to ensure that this charter change would have there was some opposition to in Montpelier and which it was not initially clear in particular how the governor would respond to this we worked hard to to get to this approval and then we are now very eager to work with the council and work with the public to use this new authority to continue to make urgent progress with respect to the climate emergency the climate emergency demands urgent action from all of us anyone who attended the town meetings that we've had in the last couple months I think could see in the simulators that we were using and in the conversations that the urgency of taking action before 2030 is real improvements that we make now savings that reductions in carbon emissions that we can make now the benefits of them compound in a crew over time and so I'm very excited that we are coming forward with the council to commit to near term further action and it's really my hope and goal that we get further rules further ordinance in front of the voters for approval at their earliest possible time so that we can use this new authority to make meaningful additional progress in the fight against the climate emergency thank you president paul thank you mayor Weinberger we'll go to councillor carpenter and then to councillor jang and followed by councillor bergman repeat what some of my colleagues would say I just want to emphasize that at least in our end of town alive and well is the concept you're going to come in my house in seven years from now you're going to rip out my gas furnace and I'm going to have to buy a new one so we really need to get the education I really appreciate councillor jang's amendments on public education we would think in this day and age we might not need as much but I think making the nexus particularly the climate crisis still hasn't been done with a lot of voters so I just encourage us to spend time on that because I think we need it whether we think we do or not I appreciate councillor carpenter was with me for testimony in the legislature a number of times on the charter change and this issue came up there as well as previously and so we'll keep repeating that this is work that's focused on new construction here on major renovations, city buildings large existing commercial buildings I think there are solutions for folks who are residential customers, homeowners we're certainly supporting incentives to help them make the switch and there may be other options that we can look at financing and other approaches to support that so we'll keep repeating that and we appreciate the opportunity to engage thank you councillor carpenter we'll go to councillor Jang and then councillor Bergman and followed by councillor Hanson councillor Jang thank you president thank you Darren and Tim for being here I think you know yes definitely if this I mean goes very well and I think I think that's a win but I think the win we need to strive for is how we have done it with us too much controversy and I mean I feel like the education is only what is missing and it seems that's what the mayor is talking about that heat pumps are and all the technologies will ultimately be cheaper you know in the next 10 years so there are miseducations out there and wanted to wanted to ask you about basically data collection in the city of Burlington how many homes residential homes are we talking about that do not actually have heat pumps that are not using electricity thank you councillor Jang make sure this is working in terms of in the city of Burlington with our net zero energy roadmap we're able to update each year how many heat pumps are in homes now in terms of the residential sector we have about a little more than 1200 homes that have a heat pump system in Burlington so we're still at the beginning of this transition we certainly have more than we did a few years ago we're not going quite as quick as the roadmap pace would have us but I hear from folks you know I have heat pumps at my home in the new north end I hear from neighbors in the new north end who have heat pumps in their homes and you know right now with a heat pump it's very much a hybrid solution you're going to be reducing a significant amount of fossil fuel use you're not necessarily going to be heating the entire home with the heat pump but you're able to reduce you know take a certain zone off of natural gas and use the heat pump instead I think there are exciting technologies that are coming very soon to market or are already here but are going to get cheaper things like an air to water heat pump that actually connects to your boiler and can actually make sure that 80-90% of your heating and cooling is being done with the heat pump that technology is not yet widely commercialized in Burlington for houses but is going to be more affordable I think in the coming years and so I think there's a lot of opportunity as well as these technologies roll out thank you and I was just wondering if I can charge you this and respectfully maybe look more into data collection and also by word by area of the city where do we have more heat pump and where do we have less and also maybe different approach around how do we engage those people as well and this is just a respectful request I'll follow up with you next thank you guys thank you councillor Jang, councillor Bergman thank you I want to point us to lines 34 through 30 36 through 38 because they really speak to this question about affordability what they say is that we're going to try to develop policies that are going to deliver benefits of the transition to low and middle income people in Burlington and you know we need to make a transition we have a crisis that is burning this planet and all of our kids all of our grandkids and even those of us who are going to be here are going to wreak the havoc that you are starting to see the inkling of in India and in Pakistan right now so let's be really clear about the emergency but you know I have a heat pump and I got weatherization efficiency through these incentive programs it's an old house that's been renovated some but is over 100 years old and I would not have done it without the help of Efficiency Vermont and BED and they made it possible to do and they have really decreased the amount of natural gas that I put in the idea that hybrid systems are there it's not all or nothing so I really appreciate the work that you all are doing and I'm really looking forward because this resolution just says for me to look forward to the product that you're going to give us so that we can then also take something out to the people I totally agree that we need to have education because if people in the new north end are concerned about people knocking on their door and you know that to them in seven years there's going to be bad stuff happening in seven years but it isn't going to be because the government here is going to be doing that so I really look forward to the work they're doing and I hope that we pass this unanimously great thank you Councillor Bergman, Councillor Hanson and then we'll try if we can perhaps to go to a vote go ahead Councillor Hanson great thanks I just wanted to build off of the argument a bit and just respond to some of these concerns raised you know these initial policies that we're exploring as we've said are going to focus on new construction, major renovations city buildings large commercial but I don't want to lose or shy away from the fact that ultimately we do need to get every building off of fossil fuels not just in Burlington in order to address this planetary emergency and this concern about harming economically Burlingtonians I think it's critical and it's good that people are raising that concern what I would encourage is that that concern doesn't be used as an excuse to not move forward but rather it be used as motivation to come together and find solutions so that we can take this transition in a way that does benefit the most vulnerable members of our community and that you know either benefits or at least doesn't harm you know moderate income Burlingtonians as well so I think that's the focus and that's what we've laid out in the resolution as Councillor Bergman said that's what the climate justice palette measure that passed alongside this charter that's what voters said clearly in response to that ballot item so that's the goal and we need people to come together to figure out how we achieve that but I definitely haven't heard anyone within the city team talking about trying to advance a policy that's gonna hurt you know everyday Burlingtonians economically I haven't heard anyone devising that and that's not what we're gonna get from BED in July and beyond so I look forward to finding solutions that can benefit our community while addressing the climate crisis thank you great thank you so much Councillor Hanson there's no other comments from councillors we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the amended resolution regarding decarbonizing all buildings in Burlington in 2020 please say aye aye all those opposed motion passes unanimously thank you so much to councillors Hanson Bergman and Travers for your work and to the administration for your collaboration on this resolution and of course to Darren and Chris it's always a pleasure to see both of you thanks so much for your work we'll look forward to the report coming back to us in just a couple of months thank you the last item on our deliberative agenda is a communication from Catherine Shad CEO regarding the expanded eligibility criteria to provide property tax relief to additional taxpayers using the existing ARPA allocation this communication comes from the CAO who but it was also worked on collaboratively with a number of councillors councillor Travers could you provide us with a motion please yes thank you President Paul I'd move to approve an adjustment to the eligibility criteria of the current property tax relief lag program as approved by the City Council in council resolution 5.06 in the year 2021 to include an increase in assessed property value in FY22 from 500,000 to 550,000 to provide eligibility properties who saw at least a 40% increase in assessment value and to extend the program's end date until June 30th of 2022 with such criteria requirements becoming effective immediately upon adoption and I'll ask for the floor back upon a second thank you councillor Travers is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor Bergman councillor Travers you have the floor back thank you President Paul I want to thank CAO Shad Jason Gao and other staff for their work on the property tax lag relief program I also want to thank councillors Carpenter Barlow and Hanson for their work with the previous council to develop the initial criteria for this program from the outset some important context first this is a one-year program funded with ARPA monies designed to address the unique impact of property owners missing out on income based state tax rebates with the state basing these needed rebates on FY 21 assessed values rather than the FY 22 values that resulted from the city's most recent reappraisal process two and perhaps more importantly the individuals who are eligible for this program A saw a tax increase as a result of the recent reassessment B have demonstrated financial need and C need to have faced additional financial hardship as a result of COVID the previous council appropriated $1 million in ARPA funds to this program and established criteria where if every eligible household applied each household could receive up to $2,000 in support the first round of applications which had a deadline of March 1st of this year resulted in roughly $470,000 in awards leaving $530,000 of the initially appropriated $1 million now the question is who was left out of this first round the proposal before the council tonight addresses the following first let's go back to the initial group who were eligible with one last reminder before the city's property tax deadline this June two let's allow eligibility for those reassessments that went up by at least 40% rather than the higher 50% by setting the figure at 40% we effectively reach every eligible household that saw a net increase in their tax bill and bring nearly 300 more properties into the relief program three let's bring another 70 or so properties into the program by raising the assessed value cap from $500,000 to $550,000 extending relief to households who were previously left out because of the location of their home and not necessarily because they have any less financial need by lowering the percent increase in assessed value from 50 to 40% as mentioned it adds nearly 300 properties to the program about 200 of these properties are in the new north end with the remainder split evenly between the old north end and south end if all of these eligible properties apply for relief it will cost approximately $127,000 however if application trends continue from that first round I anticipate the actual cost will be closer to $60,000 one question I asked is why have properties in the old north end and south end not received as much relief as some other neighbors and there are a number of factors as to why this is the case but at least one of those reasons is that a number of properties in the old north end and south end simply went up too much placing them above the $500,000 threshold established by the previous council there are a number of examples of this around the city in my experience of the people left out the initial criteria because of that assessment cap many of them fit a similar mold long-term residents often older residents on fixed incomes with limited opportunities to move especially given our current housing crisis one of these neighbors was prepared to speak about this before the board of finance and very well may be still tuned into this meeting this ward five neighbors property increased by 95% during the reassessment from $260,000 to $109,000 their annual income is $12,000 they've lived in their house for more than 20 years their tax bill last year was $7,500 and they received rebate assistance of about $5,500 their tax bill this year is nearly $11,000 but because of the property tax rebate lag they are on the hook for nearly $5,000 in property taxes about double what they paid last year the situation will fix itself next year but this year nearly 50% of this neighbors income is slated for taxes the total cost of adding the 70 or so properties like this is a bit over $100,000 again if application trends continue I believe the actual cost will be closer to $50,000 in some in total nearly 400 households will be added by amending the criteria tonight if every eligible household applies for relief the total cost of these added households will be no more than $250,000 or so but again if application trends continue I anticipate the actual cost of this will be closer to $120,000 now because these are ARPA monies any monies that are left over will return to the city-wide ARPA pool so if I'm doing my math correctly which can be a little fuzzy at times but I believe that this will leave around $400,000 of the originally slated $1 million in ARPA funds which will return to the city pool and I look forward to the council working with the mayor and the administration on how to best utilize those funds as well as the rest of the monies in the ARPA pool so I thank my colleagues for their work on this matter and would be happy to answer any questions myself I know CAO Shad is here as well perhaps to bring some more clarity to the math thank you council thank you President Paul thank you Councillor Travers before we go to any councillors who might have questions CAO Shad is there anything else you'd like to add okay thank you so much are there any councillors Councillor Jang do you have your hand up from the last one or from this to this right here and I have question for this one okay so we'll go to you and then to Councillor Hightower go ahead Councillor Hightower yes Councillor Travers yes thank you so much and I feel like in emails you answered all my question mostly about the data collection thank you for doing so and also I think it would be important to remind everyone you know I feel like the new north and yes we may have received more support from the first you know deployment of this program you know but I think also we should not be compared by any other neighbourhood because of our size right we composed at least one quarter of the Burlington City Council the Burlington residents we have maybe the biggest you know residential neighbourhood in the city and it kind of makes sense for new north enders to receive more support from this program in the past but I wanted to also you know make sure that we because this it does not sound morally it does not sit well with me personally because it seems the city of Burlington is using ARPA fund to support people who have you know homes that are assessed at over $550,000 over a million dollars right and to me ARPA fund was given to municipalities in order to better support low income and to support the city in its infrastructure as well and also we all know that right now I think every penny counts and we also have you know definitely issues around revenue loss and we are at this budget decision and I was just wondering if there are all the alternative such as for those who may have the inability to pay because of the appraisal to basically apply to the tax abatement instead of using these funds you know to to provide funds basically that's my first question to you and Katrin Chad as well Okay so you're asking that question of Councillor Travers or CAO Shad? Yes Okay which one of you would like to answer that question? I think Councillor Carpenter might be the best one Okay Alright, Councillor Carpenter And I can kick it back to Councillor Barlow I was chair of the tax committee this last year and we had a lot of discussion When you abate taxes you're using city tax dollars so you're paying one way another way so there's no true advantage to the city with the abatement process because we've just got to take that out of our general fund to pay for the abatement and it is unlikely to be eligible anyway because abatement process is for a particular hardship and maybe we could stretch the rules one way or the other to call using city tax money to cover the cost but I did want to also address and I think Councillor Travers really said it well a lot of these are unique situations the applicant or the taxpayer can't get up and sell their house tomorrow they may have to sell their house over time if they don't get enough aid from the state but in this little six months period they got to pay the bill and this is to assist them until the states kicks in so some of those examples that Councillor brought out we hope and expect will be made up next year by the state income sensitized fund so it's really a one year it's a one year problem Thank you Councillor Carpenter Councillor Jane did you have any other questions or comments maybe then the city attorney can respond are there opportunities for us to quick basically the three elements in supporting somebody's tax abatement due to one COVID-19 and also the reappraisal are there opportunities to do so that's my question Thank you Councillor Jang so there is we don't have a city attorney here with us we have the parliamentarian here with us I don't know if there's anyone here who can't answer that question or if we yeah Councillor Bergman as the former attorney for the tax abatement committee and for the tax assessor his office I would say that would be opening a floodgate which we would very strongly be should strongly hesitate against the uncollectability the illegality or the manifest injustice or the three bases by which under our charter we're allowed to abate and you know maybe manifest injustice is in that realm but there are so many things that could fall into the same situation that could change in a state program for a one-year period which is fundamentally what this is that you would hemorrhage we would hemorrhage our ability to to collect taxes I think that good lawyers can make good arguments on all sides where we would deem that wise I think is questionable so as a former attorney for this body I'd say you could probably cobble together an argument I would not were I in that position be advising that and would be strongly advising against it thank you former attorney Bergman now councillor Bergman thank you councillor did you have any other questions no further questions thank you so much councillor high tower to be followed by I'm sorry to be followed by councillor traverson then councillor barlow yeah I just had one question which you got in an email CEO Shad but only a couple hours ago so I don't know if you had a chance to answer it and maybe you're not even the right person to ask but I just wanted to make sure I think the number that convinced me is that 40% increases about what broke even from last year to this year in terms of tax burden so is that is that a correct understanding that it was the 40% figure that's correct yeah great so I think that for me is a good reason to have it 40% and then however high we can raise it beyond that above $500,000 makes sense to me so I'm supportive of this measure and thanks for everybody who put the work into this thank you councillor high tower councillor travers to be followed by councillor barlow I'll yield to councillor barlow thank you president Paul I just wanted to point out that even by raising this house value we're still addressing property owners who are previously proven that their income sensitized and receiving a property tax credit from the state so we're not increasing the pool of people who might be privileged and don't need the assistance as people that have in previous years received this so I just wanted to point that out and I'll be supporting this great thank you councillor barlow did you want to get back in the queue councillor travers sure I'll just speak to one point briefly and it was a point raised by councillor jang and others spoke to it already first of all councillor Bergman very impressed that you recollected the three elements for the tax abatement board there by memory but just on the manifestly unjust piece I think that at least many of the taxpayers who I've spoken to who were left out of the initial criteria actually would not argue that the tax itself is manifestly unjust I think what you would hear from many folks is that what they see as unfair under the circumstances is a state property tax rebate system that has a lag there's a reason we call it the property tax relief or lag relief program and it's the fact that the state looks back to the previously assessed year as opposed to this year right now I think that there's some bigger questions there and we'll look forward to the work of the ad hoc committee that the previous council put together with respect to reviewing the reappraisal reassessment process because that's a fix that we may need some state partners on such that we don't run into this situation again but I'm appreciative of the support from my colleagues here and think that this will bring some very impactful relief to a number of additional taxpayers around the city great thank you councillor travers are there any other councillors who wish to speak to this motion yes okay go ahead councillor jang thank you and thank you travers for agreeing that you know manifestly unjust could be a legal argument in order for those taxpayers and I was just wondering how about there it seems we only talking about 70 people right and was just wondering if you can basically anchorize them to apply and just see where it's gonna go that's one and two I also want to know what the administration thinks about raising this cap to you know for $550,000 to change the criteria thank you thank you councillor jang so I guess the first question is to you councillor travers I believe yeah I'm sorry councillor jang could you repeat the first question I was wondering if you are open to the idea of having those 70 people try to apply for tax abatement through manifestly unjust well I think that the point that I was referencing before is I don't know that for many of these taxpayers the tax in and of itself is manifestly unjust I think that the the issue here is the unfairness in that there is a lag in the state system and that folks have been put into circumstances that I don't know I can't entirely speak to it but I don't know that that would fit within the manifestly unjust criteria it's not the tax in and of itself that is illegal or manifestly unjust it's the surrounding circumstances of the lag that have put a number of taxpayers in very difficult financial circumstances thank you councillor travers we'll go to the mayor for the second question thank you president paul and councillor jang listen I think this has been an important program for us to pursue given the lag issue and I think councillor travers has really made a very detailed case as to why this further expansion will significantly help some additional folks in town who under the current rules they're really this was a program intended to help folks like them and the current rules they will be shut out of it so I think this has been detailed important work I do think it's important after this change if we have some big decisions coming up as as a council administration in the budget process and certainly I think many many are eager to see these ARPA funds deployed in ways that have maximum benefit for the community and I think it will be important after this next this expansion to then return these funds to the ARPA pool and get it deployed in other ways once this expansion is complete and implemented. Thank you Mayor Weinberger, councillor jang did you have any other questions? No? Okay thank you so much seeing no other questions from councillors we will go to a vote all those in favour the motion to approve an adjustment to the eligibility criteria of the current property tax relief lag program is detailed by councillor travers in the recommended action please say aye aye all those opposed the motion passes unanimously thank you thank you to all for your work on this that will bring us to the end of our deliberative agenda we have four remaining items the first is item 8 committee reports I know that councillor shannon has a committee report and don't know if there are others but we'll give this to councillor shannon first and then go to councillor bergman and we'll see if there are others councillor shannon can you hear us? I can thank you very much president ball go ahead oh there you are yeah so I just wanted to let people know that we are having a PAC meeting on May 12th at 5pm and we're going to be getting an update on memorial auditorium also an update on the dog task course and on our public art guidelines also we had a constituent contact the full council about building a building in lakeview cemetery so we're going to hear from the parks department about that and also we have a request for funding from an organization called wood for good which can collect wood that has washed up on beaches and things like that that the city needs to get rid of and can use it so we're going to hear from the council and that's all I have thank you well that's actually quite a bit sounds like you're going to have a busy meeting Councillor Bergman so the charter change committee is going to be meeting on Wednesday this coming Wednesday at 10 o'clock we're still in an organizational phase but we're going to be talking about non-citizen voting and what is important to know is that we are really looking at public engagement with regard to that and I envision us going into a variety of places in the community over the next number of months to engage folks about this so we'll be looking for your assistance in getting folks to come about that we'll be talking about the city attorney's proposal from the city attorney's office to start looking at but we're not going to do anything absent some serious community engagement on this we'll be talking about councilor compensation and getting research from the city attorney's office hopefully that will also we'll be looking to have real community engagement on this I know that folks in ward 1 and the east district we're talking about this at least on a front porch forum that I had and so we definitely know that there's engagement to have on that but look forward to the implementation of the compensation for commissioners and think that that will help in this conversation as well and then we'll have some other conversations regarding the committee's work thank you great sounds like you'll also have a very busy meeting councillor Hanson and I believe councillor Jang you have your hand up and then to be followed by councillor Hanson please thanks the transportation energy and utilities committee is meeting on May 24th at 5pm I'm not sure the agenda yet but we will I'll know by the next full city council meeting which is the night before so I can share that at that time thanks great thank you councillor Hanson councillor Jang yes thank you the racial equity council meeting on May 25th 30 to 7 in the conference room Sharon Boucher city hall agenda include updates from the administration about racism as public health emergency couple of events happening in the city such as Juneteenth on the 18 and also black experience on the 17 I believe and also the hiring of the permanent racial equity inclusion director from the administration we also will be talking about racial equity inclusion racial equity roadmap the strategy planning that was developed for the city of Burlington the committee will be talking about the next steps after those were developed and then we will be discussing our monthly meeting as well as welcoming our new councillor thank you councillor hi tower thank you president Paul for CDNR we've just had one startup meeting where we mostly covered when our next two meetings will be as well as the one year action plan which we all approve today so our next meeting will be May 24th where we plan on focusing almost exclusively on camping on municipal land because there's a lot of interest around that for future meetings there's a few things on our agenda that are pending so I will be talking with councillor Bergman about having a joint meeting or just joining one of their meetings to talk about non-citizen voting and we also have landlord licensing which is shared with ordinance so councillor Traverse and I should get in touch around that and then in June we'll also talk about reviewing the tax policy which right now we're waiting for the ad hoc committee for the most fiscal year 2022 tax information so there's some things that are upcoming in CDNR but the next meeting will just be camping on municipal land May 24th great thank you are there any other councillor Traverse please on behalf of the ordinance committee there was a written report that's on board docs the only update from there is that our next meeting will be on Thursday May 26th only agenda item at this point in time is the short-term rental ordinance that's currently before the committee thank you thanks councillor Traverse I was going to bring that up as well that we are adding written communications to this item on councillor on committee reports and we got our first one from councillor Traverse it's only a couple of paragraphs but it just gives you a pretty good idea of what's going on and what's going on which I found valuable and I just wanted to thank councillor Traverse for getting that ball rolling on these reports if there's no other committee reports we'll go to city councillor general city affairs is there any councillor wishing to report on general city affairs wonderful councillor Barlow I just want to remind any of those viewing or on a recording that we have several open vacancies on boards and city commissions and the applications for that are due no later than Friday May 20th at 430 I would encourage folks to give the list a look on the city website and participate in our city democracy thank you councillor Barlow anyone else yes councillor yes councillor Jang this is something that I just noticed about the city lately and it's about the green up day in the city of Wellington in the state in general I remember it used to be a community event I remember it used to have life a lot of community but over the past couple of years I have seen it kind of go down I was just wondering what is being done or what committee need to look at it again in engaging college students youth and to just try to make it as vibrant as possible I think it would be great for the committee to look into it thank you thank you councillor Jang anyone else on general city affairs seeing none councillor Barlow must have been reading my mind because my first update was the fact that May 20th is the deadline for applications for commissions and boards if you go on to the city website and go to the top of the screen it says commission and boards you go and click on there and you will find the application and as councillor Barlow said it would be wonderful to have lots of applicants for our commissions and boards we will be working on the selection committee for that in a couple of weeks and then the only other item I just wanted to mention councillor Shannon had mentioned that the PAC meeting is getting an update on memorial auditorium the council will also have an update on that on May 23rd and then also to add to May 23rd I did speak with Megan Tuttle today who confirmed that Nancy Stetson is on her timeline to have the redistricting maps for initial review at that meeting and then the only other thing is on the top of the consent agenda we always have a standing item called the accountability list I don't know how many people have looked at that accountability list lately there's about 40 items on that list and they start at I think 2009 so I am working with Laurie to go through that list and see if we can't call that list and for items that I am not sure whether they've been addressed I will be contacting those department heads to see if we can't make that list a little bit more responsive to actual accountability that's all I have the evening is comments from the mayor, Mayor Weinberger great thank you President Paul two things for me first of all the council and the public should know that we are getting to an important stage of the annual budgeting process this this Wednesday and then Monday sorry yes Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week we will be having 5pm budget presentations from all the departments and this is especially it's a great opportunity to really understand what is going on in each of the departments to ask questions of department heads and to get an understanding at the department level of how the challenging budget year is being approached this is also in the follow-up from this we will be looking to incorporate any feedback we get from councillors and the board of finance to these budget presentations into the final drafts of the budget that we will be moving towards submitting to the board of finance and the council in the first half of June the other event that I wanted to bring attention to is coming up this weekend it's really been a great part of the spring here in Burlington to see our various youth events coming back to life even more poignant after some of the interruptions of the pandemic in the last couple of years was out at Callahan Park this past weekend seeing both the return of the GBGSL soccer leagues and the Little League has of course started up in the last couple of weeks as well this weekend we have the return of kids day and in fact it's not even just kids day this year it is kids weekend there will be events Friday Saturday and Sunday it's being spread around the city instead of just one big waterfront park event there will actually be three events Roosevelt Park on Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. City Hall Park 11 to 2 on Saturday the fountain is back on and that will be part of the events there and then Shimanska Park will have events from 11 to 2 on Sunday so hope to see you all out there hope to see many many of Burlington kids out there and we'll see the council again in a couple of weeks thank you mayor and the weather is going to be perfect one hopes if the advance forecast is right it will be a perfect weekend on that note and with no further business I would ask for a motion to adjourn thank you councilor house seconded by councilor hightower all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye any opposed we are adjourned at 9 30 p.m. have a great evening